When the group launched into "Throw It Away," one of its new tracks that features Swizz Beatz in all his shot-calling glory, money was duly thrown at the crowd. Green bills rained down lazily before some actual (very serious) precipitation pummeled the venue, flooding stairwells at the end of the set.

Backstage after the show, we sat down with Slaughterhouse, including Jersey's own Joe Budden.

"Anytime we can bring anything positive to New Jersey I'm going to be happy about that no matter what, so I'm excited," says Budden of the show's migration to Holmdel from Governors Island. (Ortiz, of course, pshawed Rock the Bells as having been stolen from his native New York.) Especially, he said, "A festival as powerful as this one."

Royce, commenting on the dressing room across the hall — the one devoted to surprise guest "Ms. Lauryn Hill" — took the opportunity to wax praise about Budden's fellow Jerseyan.

"I think I love Lauren more than any woman in hip-hop ever in the history of hip-hop," he said. At that point, Hill hadn't shown yet, and none could confirm she'd attend. (But she did).

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Slaughterhouse performed at Hot 97's Summer Jam, too, but at Rock the Bells the four came with "more material," Budden says, as well as "more awareness."

During Sunday's show, Crooked I, the group's energetic West Coast emcee, called their chemistry "A mix between Tyra Banks and energy drinks ... a fore(four)-headed Monster!" (That line was perhaps more successful than another from Crooked that Budden had to patiently explain was a West coast pornography reference).

After the set, Crooked I, who hails from Long Beach, Calif., said Slaughterhouse's appeal is that each of its emcees have "been in the game a long time." So if this go-around, there's buzz, let there be buzz, he says. "That's definitely ... that's buzzworthy."

With the second Slaughterhouse album, more people are listening: Several tracks are getting good play on radio. In addition to "Throw It Away," (second video below) there's "My Life," featuring Cee Lo Green and a sample from the '90s dance song "Rhythm of the Night" by Corona. There's the usual Halloween/horror-sounding tracks, too, but that's not one of them.

"You know, so many times when people make an album and they go to try to create these radio records, number one it never works because that's what they're trying to do," says the bearded Budden, who just celebrated his 32nd birthday, his deep voice taking a relaxed cadence. "Number two, by the time you create that radio record and by the time you're ready to release that radio record it might be a whole new sound of radio records."

No, they were just trying to please themselves and the good folks at Shady Records, he says. Signing with Shady in 2011 has surely given the group a huge boost since it first coalesced in 2008. Eminem's high-pitched rage can be heard on several of the album's choruses and songs (Mr. Mathers himself stars in the group's video, above).

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He took the opportunity to issue what he warned would be a "brief rant" about the oversaturation of "the word 'critic' in hip-hop."

"Being a critic is a talent," says Budden. "Your ear is trained to listen for certain things. So now — because of all different types of social media outlets, because of all types of different technology being the way it is — every Tom, Dick and ------ Harry picks up a blog or a pen and paper and says, 'Oh, this is journalism and I'm a critic. No, ----tard, you not."

(Crooked inserted a footnote, too: "I critique critics.")

Amy Kuperinsky/The Star-LedgerJoe Budden on the big screen at Rock the Bells Sunday during the Slaughterhouse set.

"I always say music is just what feelings sound like," Budden says. "And I think we covered all feelings on that album." Timed to the release of "Welcome to: Our house" was also a free mixtape called "On the House."

"Like my good man Royce always says, the mixtape is what we do in our sleep," says Budden. "We can rap. Put us anywhere in the universe and we're going to feel like we're one of the best rappers there. The industry probably had counted us out because of our record-writing abilities on the album (the group's 2009 debut disc), chock filled with some of the best record-writing I've had in my career, for sure. But, you know, I mean we all put our heads together and made sure to attack that one point and be that one less criticism that the critics have to speak about when they think of Slaughterhouse."

Crooked I, who calls himself "a student of hip-hop" as well as a supplier, responded to what some of the old school set had to say about rappers "nowadays."

On Saturday, the first day of Rock the Bells, Method Man grilled the cash-cars-girls mentality of the youngbloods, while DMX, that night's headliner, did much the same.

"Here's my whole thing with that," said Crooked I. "... As far back as I remember, when it came to hip-hop, the rappers always had cash, girls, liquor, big gold chains on. It was rock star from the beginning, so I don't think nothing changed, really ... no one is going to say that Rakim is not an emcee because he had a Rolls Royce and a gold chain," he continued. "Some people might feel like there's too much emphasis on the jewelry and the cars."

For his part, Crooked says he sports Adidas shelltoe sneakers because Run DMC did and and famously wrote a song about the shoe. "Hip-hop reflects what's popping in the streets."

Either way, says Budden, the exposure from Slaughterhouse's second album has done much to literally increase his value as a solo artist — even if he's managed to maintain a strong fanbase throughout his major label travails and exile.

"My price went up as soon as that album dropped," he says. "My rate skyrocketed, as soon as midnight August 28th got here. So even if I'm disillusioned that's just what the ---- it is."